KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee on Wednesday said reservation
was not the only way for liberation of Dalits, but the present policy of reservation in
the fields of employment and education would not be withdrawn.

"We leftists think that reservation is not the only way of liberating Dalits. What we
need is extensive land reforms in eliminating the evils of feudalism and consequent casteist
vices," Bhattacharjee told a function here organised by Dalit intellectuals to felicitate
ministers and MLAs of the sixth left front belonging to the backward classes.

The chief minister, however, made it clear that his government had no immediate plans to
do away with the present policy of reservation in the field of education and employment.
The school service commission and college service commission had been instructed
accordingly.

Stating that India still suffered from the dual evils of feudalism and capitalism, he
said, this gave rise to caste related problems.

"We find, therefore, that some parties in north India are indulging in casteist politics.
They don't use economic yardsticks to measure backwardness. The BJP, on the other hand,
is playing their game on the basis of communalism and fundamentalism. This is perversion,"
he said.

Source:http://203.199.93.7/articleshow.asp?art_id=1130168955
Referred by:Mukundan CM
Published on: July 24, 2001
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